The mind of Bradley Gelschus

So today Ozayr said this one is a freebee. A catch all, whatever we want to throw.

So I will talk about the year.

This year is the deciding factor for how my life will pan out. Will I get accepted into the college of Design and be done with the Architecture program in a year and a half or will I need to stay an additional year. I must do well in classes. I am trying my best and I feel that I have succeed beyond anything I have done in the past.
This class was fun for me. The volunteering, and lectures and the fact that Justin knows my name (I think it's because I bug him so much). I did everything I possibly could to achieve in my college career this semester and I hope I am not dissappointed.

This summer on May 21 I fly to the Netherlands for a May term with Julia Robinson. It sounds like it will be a great class.

This class was extremely fun yet extremely challenging for me. I did not really know how we possibly all finished it without morpheus or lionidus killing us all.
Justin had a baby. Great for him. And I apologize for bugging him so much when he had so many other things he could have been doing then listen to me about my constant questions.

Thanks again for everything, I learned more than I ever thought I would in this class.

And with that I pass the torch to the next generation of students.

"Would you positively or negatively reference the class to future students, why or why not?"

Answer: Yes

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So for this blog I am suppose to talk about 2 blogs we heard during dicussion. We have only listened to 4 out of the 8 so far, and one of those was presented by me. I was listening to what the other groups said but I was also focused into what I must cut out of our speech since we would be going last this day, so I didn't retain all information so I will also review my speech.

Improve maternial health,
They talked about how we must first improve the United states' maternal health before other countries. They also talked about why they are so bad everywhere as well as in America. This speech was not very interesting to me because I am not married and I don't plan on getting anyone pregnant any time soon. And listening about future mom's really made me uneasy because I have a girlfriend and now I am worried, even though we are safe. I don't know what else to say about it, it was fairly well put together I just didn't like the topic.

To tell you the truth, I keep confusing the honor students' presentations for our presentations so I will talk about probably an honor students presentations because I was more intentive during theirs because I was not worried about my own speech.

Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
their only target was
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015

This was a very good presentation. They talked about how woman in the eastern hemisphere are expected to only clean and cook and do stuff for the house. They do everything in front of the village, EVERYTHING and that is how it is. They are only allowed to see woman doctors which is in short supply because it is hard for women to get an education. They are known as prostitutes by revealing their hair/face. Things are very different for men and women and they must change.

Our Speech,
Ensuring Environmental Sustainability

Our speech was too long for the time allowed for us so we had to cut things out and speed through numbers, or at least I did. we had to skip sections and summarize mostly. Even though we did this I still believe we proposed great ideas for what us, as architects can do for the environment. As well as what we, as human beings can do to better help the cause. I believe that our research on policies and the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center has greatly improved our knowledge of what is out there and what we can strive for in the future.

Please don't grade us badly, we worked extremely hard (or atleast I did)

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So this is my last blog entry. It is a good day today.

Last week Abdulahi didn't bring any homework. He said he didn't have any. I don't believe him because everyone else seemed to be doing something. We played multiplication 500 with 2 other kids. Abdulahi doesn't understand math very well. Kind of a let down. One of the other kids playing was super smart. Not sure what his name is.
I cannot attend it tomorrow. I have to take a class on REVIT and it last during when i will be volunteering so i told Abdulahi and the other staff and they said that was fine. Not this week but next week I will be attending my last volunteer time. Should be fun. I'll tell everyone next week. I hope that my last day is a nice one so we can play outside.

And with that I ...

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So this week went by fast. We did homework again. He's getting things down quickly but tends to still have a hyper side. Can't sit still. And tends to get into arguments with one other kid alot. No idea what his name is but they tend to do something to each other, and then the other will retaliate later. It's an ongoing cycle. I am having difficulties questioning Abdulahi on what he should be doing. I get forgetful and end up saying what he should be doing not asking what he should be doing or is that how we sit in chairs. Can you show me? Hard for me to learn.

But other than that he is a good kid

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I'm not really certain what we are suppose to do for this blog but I did read the syllabus and It stated that we will have to write some on our volunteering so I will just assume this is that time.

So homework n' hoops is my volunteer location. It is an afterschool program designed to tutor and mentor innercity kids. The children get there at about 3:30 and meet up with their mentor. Then can then decide it they want to go play games or read or go to the computer lab for the first 30 minutes. After the first 30 minutes the studying begins. Most kids bring in homework and they work one on one with a tutor. After their homework is done they can either choose to do some outload reading or can play games to increase the learning, such as a multiplication game.

My kid's name is Abdulahi ( I think that's how it's spelt ). He is a pretty nice kid. He is a little to influenced by his friends and has a short temper sometimes. Not too bad of a temper just likes to retaliate sometimes. He gets distracted quite easily and has trouble sitting down. He doesn't run around he just would prefer to stand. I think this is because he has alot of energy after school is over. He also doesn't get the concept of staying by me all the time but he is getting better.

He's a good kid.

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I'm not really sure what the blog for this week is suppose to be but looking at the syllabus it states something about blogging about how our Volunteering is going. So I will do that.

Homework n' Hoops is an afterschool organization to help with tutoring and mentoring young, innercity children. The kids show up and get to play games for a while and then the homework begins. Most kids bring their homework in and when they are done with it we then continue the learning process by either outload reading or playing math games.

It is a one on one tutoring thing with a student and a mentor. My kid's name is Abdulahi (I think that's how you spell it). He is a nice kid deep down but he is just to influenced by his friends. He also has trouble sitting on the chair the right way, I believe this is because he is really energetic after school is over. He sometimes gets confused that he is suppose to stay with me and work with me. That when we are suppose to be doing work he isn't suppose to distract or really socialize with his friends. He is slowly getting better.

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What style is environmental sustainability?
Is it something that we need to blend in a be easy flowing? Or should we use designs that stand out and pop and will scream for you to listen to it? Environmental Sustainability gives me the feeling of easy going, a chillaxed lifestyle. Not a care in the world now that the environment is safe.
But, this does not necessarily tell others a plan of action for this to happen. We can not be relaxed anymore about how we treat the world. Us sustainable people can no longer sit in the bleachers on these views of the world because with us sitting we get nothing done, no one listens to us. So how do we present these ideas?
We stand out, Stand up for what we believe.
I believe that for us to be heard, to be understand we need to present our ideas in a bold way. And that way is much like how Graphis designs their page.

By promoting a design that stands out and forces us to look at it will force people to start reading the info and start thinking about situations.

Life will change. Soon. For better or worse but It will change.
We will try the best we can to make it change for better rather than worse. But people must understand and read our words and ideas.

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What makes up who I am? Is it what I do or what I see or what I touch or the people I interact with? WHat makes me me?

I am me because I what I do, where I am and what I use. I can say that I am environmentally sound but we all know the old saying of "actions speak louder than words." I am a hypocrit because sometimes I am not environmentally sound. Right now, I am sitting in my room, I have lights on. I'm watching LOST

I have another computer running as I am typing this, I have a refridgerator cooling and my stereo is on so that I have surround sound. Now does that appear to make me environmentally sound and try and conserve energy. Not so much.

So how am I me?
I am an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota attempting to start a Bachelor's of Design in Architecture, not going so well. So what does this mean? I am usually tired from doing so many things. I freak out on the day before something is due, I procrastinate GOD do i ever procrastinate, I work to pay for school and I am trying out this girlfriend thing

But do these things make me me? Somewhat. But what am I? I think what I am is what I imagine, what I draw, what I write that no one knows about no one reads or criticizes. I can explore my fullest potential when I have no one to tell me what I'm doing is wrong or stupid. I am unique. I want to grow up and construct what I can imagine. I want to create an entirely sustainable skyscraper. I want to build a residence that is heated and cooled on a geothermal system alone. I don't want to be constrained, I want to let loose. Open my mind. go BASE jumping to understand wind to building relationships more

I am the future of architecture.

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If I was let go of the Architectural School program what would I do?

I would create a completely sustainable city. If money is no option.

I would like to design a city, that does not exist yet that would completely function on natural renewable resources. The city would be built in a circular or octogonal shape that will run entirely off, hydro wind and solar power. I would like to design the city in montana on the blue star.

Montana land is cheaper than most areas and you get much more land than elsewhere, also, Montana is underpopulated with many rivers and streams to provide access for hydropower plants and it contains mountain tops so that you can place wind turbines onto the jetstream to ensure maximum efficiency.

This city will focus more on the facts of connecting with nature, and will only allow major roads to drive around it and have a service road through it to just allow the ability to pick up trash and recycling and drop of people and groceries. No private parking will be available.

The city will contain many public transportation methods such as buses as well as subways/light rails

I would like to creat this type of city to get away from the major type of cities that we see today. I would like to focus more on environmentally sound buildings rather than buildings that dangerous to not only the environment but also to those people who occupy them

I am trying to ensure that our society does not end up like that in the robot city of the matrix, with the sun blocked completely out of other resources. We must stay clean and not pollute. I have attached a youtube video of the robot city. It also includes some sweet fight scenes. Fight scenes not necessary, just really cool. GET THEM NEO!!!

I'm out everyone. SWEET!!!

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THIS FUCKING BLOG SHIT DELETED MY LAST BLOG WITHOUT SAVING!

Fuck mankind
We have no idea what the hell we are doing. "The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them. " Paul Hawken. We, the people of the United States of America, are the ones defying nature. We use to brush off the idea of global warming and the idea that one day we will run out of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources because why? There was really no solid evidence. But not what? There is FUCKING SOLID EVIDENCE! And what do we do? Defy nature still. Sure some of us are coming around to realize we must start making a valient effort to ensure that the human race survives and doesnt die in a flood or drought or extreme heat or extreme cold or whatever the hell doomsday will be. Maybe when we get close to running out of all resources and the ice caps melt a meteor will hit earth and that will be the end of it all. That would just be out of knowwhere. BOOM!

We need to start relying on resources the earth gives us naturally. Such as Wind power and solar power, and what the hell ever happened to Hydropower plants? Didn't that work. You just dam up a river and it will provide power right? I think we use to do that, let me check

Yeah we did do that before. The hoover dam. I believe that powered a home or two. In fact I believe it can power about half the state of Nevada at full productivity. Don't we have a river or two in America that we could do that also? How fucking convenient. You know what would be a change also, applying solar panels to the side of the dam and that would increase the amount of energy we collect. what a great idea.
“A passive and ignorant citizenry will never create a sustainable world.� Andrew Gaines. Ok we defied nature because there was no proof. Now there is proof that parts of antartica and greenland are melting that have never done that before and we have only a limited amount of fossil fuels left and we are burning them extremely fast. So what does America do? We buy Hummers and build mansions and we have recycling but that doesn't seem to be very effective. We pave over parks to build a parking lot so that everyone can drive that measly 1 mile to work in our SUVs and not have to worry about working out or exercising by just walking, or even take public transits. WE are promoting a bad life for ourselves. With the average family having around 2.5 cars and not worrying about the emissions from this shit. WE are getting fat and lazy, and society is promoting it. When did we stop treated our bodies as temples and move to be obese.

We are getting worse. We need to make a drastic change to keep on keeping on. America needs to change, or the world will be changed forever. Live healthy, build healthy, teach healthy, survive.

Take me home Family Circus

All photos taken from Flickr.com

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Minneapolis has many errors in the social design. Mostly the fact that there is very limited not motorized transportation within the inner city. Another error is the lack of parks and grassy noles that would allow people to play/ relax or spend time with their family and friends in. The City contains too many parking lots where if the planners had stacked parking rather than just paved over the park, more parks would remain. The picture below shows this design flaw of a parking lot, inside the city and it also shows an upside, PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! We need to stride to step away from the inner city parking lots and move more into having people park outside the city and then proceed to take the public transit or bike

The city has begun to improve though with the production of the Light Rail. This promotes that more people would take this to the mall or airport instead of driving. There is a downside however, the LTR has so little of spots compared to the vast area of the cities that we would need much more rails to be able to accomodate everyone's needs.

The LTR runs on electricity which has much less CO2 Emissions that combustion engines and we NEED to see MORE of this kind of transportation. The City has gotten off the ground and began the first steps in learning how to walk. But it's going to need much more encouragement and help, and will probably fall on its butt a few more times before it is running around in full swing of this more environmentally sound idea.

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Andy Goldsworthy mostly used environmental aspects in his works, whether it with rain and rivers or with building a flowing wall of natural rocks. He observed most of his works through rural environments and the way everything flows through everything else and understood that things are connected through life. Inside the city environmental aspects such as rocks and rivers don't always connect us. Instead, we are all connected through the skyline of the city as well as with the flow and energy of traffic. In the picture below you can see how everything flows through the city and lights our path. We cannot see everything in one moment or understand everything by one individual picture, you must visualize the entire site. This picture combines these moments into a flow of understand. Below this picture I will discuss the following picture

This picture describes how the skyline can flow like the environment use to look. It jumps up into the atmosphere and becomes a part of it. The city has transformed from small buildings and environments to skyscrapers and lights and motion. Fast-paced lives of businessmen have caused us to improve our lives to better increase production with less amount of stress, amout of work we do, as well as even have to do very limited exercise (this includes walking). The energy of the city is focused on the flow of traffic, people and products. This picture is to show the transformation we have created to help improve the people and production of the city.

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January 22, 2008.
Today we started up the second semester of the year. We all start new classes and hope they go as good or better than the semester before. A new, fresh start to our college lives. Some of us are coming to an end while others are just beginning. Every individual is different in one way or another. We all do have something in common, we are taking this class, ARCH 1701 at the University of Minnesota. Most have no idea what to expect. We never know how the teacher will teach us or what we will learn or how we will learn this new topic. It scares us in the unknowing. "What am I in for?" "What do I have to expect?" "How will this class affect the rest of my life?" We do not know. We probably won't know some of these questions the entire semest or not even this year. This will be an experience that will be a part of our lives from this point on, or at least we hope so.

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